“Dear PoPville,
Here’s the situation. I live in the Anthology — a Greystar managed building on H Street. On Wednesday we received an email from management with a “reminder” that bike storage is a paid amenity that costs $50 a month.
The problem is that bike storage has never been a paid amenity here.
It’s not mentioned as a paid amenity in our lease or in the welcome packet residents receive when we sign the lease. In fact, when I moved in, the leasing agent helpfully walked me down to the bike storage room, so I could immediately begin using this wonderful free amenity!
Even weirder — every resident has always been able to access the bike storage room with their building fob. But a few weeks ago, the fob suddenly stopped working on the bike storage room. We were told it was an issue with the fob system and we could get a physical key from the front desk to get into the storage room. Now residents are wondering whether this was part of their strategy to shut off access to the room and retroactively make it a paid amenity.
So now if you want to store your bike in the Anthology, you’ve got to pay a $50 a month Bike Rent — on top of your Regular Rent, your Pet Rent, and all the Conservice billing issues we’re also having for water.
We’re wondering if anyone else in Greystar-managed buildings is suddenly being told your free amenities are now going to be paid amenities.”
Update: “Apparently the backlash was already so strong in the building that our building was forced to respond. They just emailed to say that current residents will keep free bike storage until the end of their lease — but Bike Rent is still here to stay, and residents will now have to pay $5 a month for bike storage.”